


Earlier Stars

by SapphireSassenach



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 11:16:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8325664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireSassenach/pseuds/SapphireSassenach
Summary: Claire thinks about the past as the anniversary of her and Jamie's wedding approaches while she is living in Boston.





	

Boston 1950

 

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The sound of the clock on the wall seemed to be vibrating through me as I sat in the kitchen, straining to see in the dim lighting. The only other sound was of the crickets in the night and the tapping of the leaking faucet in the kitchen. The small living room of our modest house was void of sound or life. Only a small night light kept me out of the complete darkness as I sat on the sofa and a speckle of stars.

A medical textbook was in front of me – I didn’t know which one as my eyes refused to focus on the ink. A warm cup of ginger tea to my right, the heat radiating to my hand as I tried to sip the spicy drink slowly to settle my stomach.

The clock had read 11:45 p.m. when I had left the bedroom where Frank had been sleeping, oblivious as I left the room. I hadn’t looked at the time since I had crept into Bree’s room to check on her sleeping form and then tip toe downstairs to try and busy my mind.

There was only so much one could do in the suburbs in the late hours of the night to try and distract a mind. But try I did because to let the emotions hovering on the edge of the surface of my mind meant succumbing to the void that was inches away from me, its darkness beckoning me with licks of pain and the sting of tears.

It had been easier to avoid in the four years since Bree had been born. The utter emptiness that losing my other half caused was filled by the daughter he left behind. There were days though that the siren calls of falling apart were more appealing.

The thought of letting all of the built-up pain, sorrow and anger of the years out in one sweep. Letting myself wallow in the loss. Letting myself curl up and cry out.

It was the fear of never coming out of the darkness that kept me in the light.

Tomorrow was Bree’s first day of nursery school. And it was also the anniversary of my marriage to James Fraser.

The day in itself seemed more of a dream-like memory, the edges faded with time and whiskey. I only had vague memories of the ceremony that would change my life forever and mark my body with blood as well as my soul. My hand automatically went to the place where my blood was mingled with his on that day, brushing the invisible mark as if I could touch the past.

Jamie and I had never been one for celebration as our lives then didn’t really allow it. The only peace we had ever had was at Lallybroch, our only real home together. It had been one day in the fall after the traumatic months of Paris that we ever celebrated the occasion.

It had been a quiet day, the fields were glowing yellow from the sunshine and the flowers in the meadow were dancing together in the breeze as our feet crunched over leaves.

“Here Sassenach. It’s a bonny place.”

I smiled a little at his tone, one of boyish excitement trying to be suppressed with his now adult musings.

He was right though; it was a bonny place. From the hill, you could see almost all of the estate as the sun started to set. The pink-orange sun making all the clouds look like candy and the sky a vibrant red while the land sparked with the dying of the light.

Jamie set down the basket he had brought and held out his hands for me to join him under the leaves and branches of the large tree.

Shyly, he handed me a small package, a thick piece of paper wrapped into a small ball with a thick black string holding it together.

I glanced up at him, smiling, seeing his ears turn pink in delight as he watched my face as I began to untie the small bow.

The paper came undone and I was greeted with a small polished rock, the piece of amber he had shown me after he had come home from traveling around the estate. Along with the honey balls he had saved for me.

It was shining now though, and the sunlight bounced off of it, creating reflections of light onto me and Jamie. I rolled it in my palm, feeling the warmth and solidness of it. An echo of the man in front of me.

“I thought to have it made into a necklace or ring, but I thought that ye might just like a little stone to travel with ye instead. To keep in your box.”

He gently reached out and pinched the rock between his thumb and pointer finger, squinting as he observed it. He smiled ruefully at me and placed it back in my open palm.

“It can give ye strength when ye are about treating aliments and such. Perhaps a wee piece of me to keep close when I’m no there. To keep ye safe.”

Tears prickled in my eyes as I looked at his earnest face, soft with care and alight with tenderness.

“Oh, Jamie,” I whispered as I closed my hand around the precious gem. The pulsing in it echoing the pulse of Jamie’s hand tight in mine. “I love it. Thank you.”

I moved over into his waiting arms and he wrapped me against his back as my feet stretched out alongside his as we gazed out into the fields of our legacy. It was a moment that I knew I could reach back on as it was happening. A moment of such utter peace, even in the times of struggle ahead, I would be able to conjure the warmth of his arms and the feel of the sun setting against my skin.

There was a slight stab of pain at the thought of a curly haired toddler running around, chasing butterflies as Jamie and I watched on with pride, but I pushed that thought aside and focused on the feel of his heartbeat against my back and his warm breath in my own curls as his nose buried in my hair.

It was ending of summer and the beginning of fall and the threat of the chilly air swirled around us as the sun started to disappear.

“Has the sun died too?” Jamie asked as he laid his head on my shoulder.

“What?” I laughed, trying to look back and see his expression.

He turned to look at me as his eyebrows knit together as he thought. “Ye told me that the stars have died, but we still see the light from them.” He gestured at the sun. “It is a star, no?”

I hummed against him as I remember when I told him that. Right after I had chosen him at the fairy hill and chosen the life that we were now living.

“It is,” I admitted, “But the sun is still alive. It’s only the stars very far away that have died.”

He huffed against me. “And the sun is not far away?”

I laughed at his tone. Jamie was one of the smartest men of his time, able to converse and persuade anyone, but he had no real notion of the celestial objects outside of what his Catholic upbringing and Parisan education had taught him, which wasn’t much.

I wedged my arse into a better position and he readjusted his grip accordingly.

“It is far away, thousands of miles away. But there are some stars as old as the universe, which are gone from us now. They were only there in the beginning of time. So, when you look at the stars, you are looking back into time.”

He mumbled something under his breath and I knew that conversation was over.

We sat there, under the large tree with the cool breeze falling around us and caressing our skin, watching the sun disappear until it was twilight.

“I’m sorry we didna get a chance celebrate our anniversary,” Jamie murmured in my ear, his whisper making me break out into goose bumps.

I smiled to myself at his concern, such a sweet man. Many men back in my time didn’t even remember an anniversary or birthday. And if they did, it was usually only marked by a peck on the cheek and a dozen roses. Frank had done so religiously for the few anniversaries we spent together.

“It’s alright, Jamie. We aren’t really one for celebration.”

He brushed a few stray curls away from my bodice and back to my shoulder. 

“Aye, that’s true enough. Seems something always gets in the way.”

Hm, that was certainly true enough. Our anniversary was certainly not able to be celebrated while I was in the arms of the king and while Jamie was in the Bastille. I shook my head slightly to shake off the ache of that time. An ache I knew would never fade. My birthday last year was celebrated as I clung to Jamie for dear life after he had saved me from the witch trial. Another point in my life I wanted to forget. Christmas was marred by Wentworth.

“But,” Jamie said and paused for a moment before turning me to face him. His usually bronze face was ivory in the cast of the moonlight. His eyes shown like glistening sapphires as he looked at me, rubbing his hands on my hips.

“If there was ever a holiday we should celebrate, it would be my birthday.”

I leaned forward and brushed my nose to his, nuzzling close as the air grew colder. “Oh? Are you growing a little more selfish in your old age?”

I felt his lips stretch in a smile against my forehead where they rested. “Weel, no. But I wilna say that I didn’t enjoy the favors you paid me that day, Sassenach.”

I slapped his hand with no sting. I remembered that well as I was sore between the legs for days after.

“No, the reason is that May 1 of last year is when I got the best gift god or anyone could have given me.”

My eyebrows came together in confusion as I glanced up at him. His finger gently traced a trail from my ear to the bottom of my jaw. “You see, Claire. That was the day I was given you.”

The truth of the worlds stopped me as his eyes looked at me, as tender as the night sky. I had indeed come through on Beltane, which also happened to be the day of Jamie’s birthday. Maybe we were fated. Perhaps there was some sort of order to the universe.

“I suppose the stars were aligned for us,” I whispered into the softness of his shirt.

He chuckled and I felt the rumblings under my cheek. And in that moment, I had never wanted to freeze time so badly. To confine this moment forever to memory.

“Aye, mo nighean donn, they were indeed.”

 

I desperately tried to press my knuckles as hard as I could into my eyes, so that my vision was distorted by blurs and spots of color. Anything to stop the tears. Over the last four years, I had shed enough tears to fill an ocean. Bree didn’t need a mother who she constantly remembered as sad.

I had long since told myself that the past was the past and Jamie would have been upset with me not keeping my promise to forget and let go.

“Dinna fash, Sassenach,” he would whisper to me as he kissed the tears away. Making the pain disappear with the softness of his lips. “Dinna weep.”

But grief was love’s unwillingness to let go. If I kept my hands busy enough, it could detract my mind from memory of sunlight reflecting off red curls and rough hands that smoothed up and down my body.

But for the heart. And the soul. It was simply not the case. Jamie was ingrained into my blood. His flesh had cut through mine and marked my being as forever his. From that first touch, that first kiss, the first time I held him inside me. It was the risk of loving and I had been prepared to make that risk for him.

To risk my heart and soul because there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to keep him. To love him.

But now, staring at the unseeing words of the page before me and brushing the faded J scar of my hand, the pain was all I had left to remember him with. The only memory besides the child he had given me that our love was real.

A stray tear ran down my face as the clock struck midnight, paused for a brief moment and moved on to the next second of time. And that’s the hell of it, there was never enough time.

“Mama?”

My eyes snapped to the shadowed doorway where Bree stood in her pink sleep suit, gripping her favorite, ratty blanket. She sleepily rubbed at her eyes, blinking as she walked a few steps into the light of the nightlight near me.

“What’s wrong, love? Did you have a bad dream?”

She jumped onto my lap and I smoothed down her hair as she snuggled close like she did as an infant. Her little form was still heated from her sleep.

She nodded against my chest as I felt her relax into my hands. I kissed the crown of her head and held her close to me, rocking her gently as I did when I nursed her when she was first born.

It was only a few moments later that I heard her breathing grow deep and I knew she was asleep again. I gently pinched a lock of her red hair between my fingers, feeling the smooth strands and watching the dim light reflect all the colors in it.

I clutched it tight in my palm as my- our daughter slept and glanced at the clock again.

“Happy anniversary,” I whispered as I gazed out to the blinking stars of the past.


End file.
